Rocky Mountain Wapiti 55 



second title from the present species, of whose range it probably marks the 

 northern limits. 



But this extensive distributional area has been vastly curtailed during 

 the last half- century. In the Adirondack mountains of New York 

 State wapiti are stated to have been abundant about the year 1836, but 

 when Dr. Merriam wrote his history of the mammals of this tract 

 in the early eighties, the only evidence of the former presence of this 

 deer was afforded by its buried bones and antlers, even tradition of its 

 former existence having died out. In Pennsylvania the last wapiti is stated 

 to have been killed in the year 1853. "In 1870," writes Dr. G. B. 

 Grinnell,' " there were some in Michigan, but they were few. West of 

 the Missouri River, however, they were still abundant, and in 1873 I saw 

 several hundred less than one hundred and fifty miles west of Omaha." 

 Within the territory of the United States the region where true wapiti 

 are most abundant is the neighbourhood of the Yellowstone Park in 

 Wyoming, but there are also some in the northern parts of the Rocky 

 Mountains, as well as in the wilds of Colorado. Even in many parts of 

 Wyoming the range of this deer has been greatly circumscribed, its former 

 abundance in the Bighorn range, according to Mr. F. C. Selous,'' being 

 attested only by the number of bleached antlers which mark the line of 

 the great spring migration, when the wapiti were returning to the 

 mountains from their winter feeding-grounds on the plains. At the 

 present day these noble deer are unknown on the low-grounds of the 

 Bighorn basin, and the few survivors have to make shift as best they can 

 during the dreary winter months in the mountains, from among the pine 

 forests of which they emerge as seldom as possible. 



This great reduction in the range and numbers of the true wapiti has 

 undoubtedly affected the size of the survivors, and old stags with really fine 

 antlers are now few and far between, and are year by year becoming still 



1 Outing, vol. xxxvii. p. 257 (1900). - Sport and Travel, p. 157 (1900). 



